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Indian drug kingpin mysteriously escapes police custody

September 27, 2012 | 11:41
am

NEW DELHI — Indian
police are embarrassed after word leaked out this week that an alleged drug kingpin
suspected of running a $40-million heroin and methamphetamine network walked away from
the police unit guarding him and the escape was kept from the public for days.

Ranjit Singh, who uses the alias Raja Kandola, was reportedly
being transported back to Delhi’s Tihar Jail by train Monday after a court hearing in northern Punjab state when he flew the coop about 11:30
p.m.

Police officials were not available for comment, and versions
differ on exactly what happened. Some media reports say Singh was escorted by
four officers aboard the Jammu Mail express train, others by six. Most agree
that the train made a stop at Ludhiana, about 160 miles
north of New Delhi.

Mukesh Gautam, a crime reporter with the Dainik Bhaskar daily
newspaper, says sources told him that five of the officers were asleep when the
train stopped and Singh asked the sixth to go buy him some tea. When the officer
returned, Singh was gone. Another version has Singh offering spiked drinks to
the policemen and slipping away, although it’s unclear why Singh would be
entertaining the police.

Gautam says even these versions may be questionable.
A few years ago in a similar case, he said, police initially reported that a
prisoner escaped from a rail carriage only to eventually admit he had slipped
away earlier from the hotel where they were all staying. “Maybe it’s the same
situation,” he said.

Other pieces don’t quite fit together, Gautam added, including
why the Delhi police transporting Singh didn’t report his flight to the railway
police, who have jurisdiction over crimes within the system, and remained on
the train another five or six hours to Delhi without trying to apprehend him.

Police only acknowledged the escape Wednesday.

Accounts also differ on whether Singh was handcuffed and, if so,
whether the handcuffs were affixed to the train. India’s Supreme Court ruled in
1996 that handcuffs are a human rights violation except in extreme cases.
Police officials could not be reached for comment.

“By international standards, the police face absurd restrictions,”
said Ajai Sahni, head of
Delhi’s Institute for Conflict Management, a think tank. “Ordinarily, unless there’s demonstrable danger, you’re not
allowed to handcuff them. Often you’ll see police and hardened criminals
walking hand in hand like lovers around the court.”

Some saw this case as part of a broader pattern. “There are a lot
of problems with the Indian police, including poor training, corruption,
incompetence and the possibility of being subverted,” Sahni said.

Singh, who spent much of his life overseas, eluded arrest when police
closed in on a Punjab farmhouse in June, reportedly
seizing 70 pounds of methamphetamines and 40 pounds of ephedrine, a key
ingredient in making methamphetamines.

Singh was finally caught in August by Delhi
police, who said he had with him nearly a pound of heroin, half a pound
of ephedrine and three semiautomatic firearms. He faced
separate charges in Punjab of drug racketeering,
sending illegal immigrants to foreign countries and firearms violations, which
was why he had been transported north last week.

On Wednesday, an embarrassed Delhi police force announced it had
suspended the head constable in charge of transporting Singh and several other
officers on his team and initiated a high-level investigation.

But escapes are relatively frequent and follow-through relatively
rare, said Sahni.

“There’s not a particularly high chance of those who escape
getting caught again,” he said. “The situation is fairly abysmal.”